An Introduction to Film

before the mise-en-scène overwhelms the narra -
tive with overripe colors, swirling movements (of
characters and camera), manic editing, and non -
naturalistic acting. The movies can create the most
imaginative spectacles, but when those spectacular
effects do not help to tell the story, viewers are left
with cinematic fireworks and little else.
The creation of a movie’s mise-en-scène is nearly
always the product of very detailed planning of each
shot in the movie. Planning a shot involves making
advance decisions about the placement of people,
objects, and elements of decor on the set; determin-
ing their movements (if any); setting up the lighting;
figuring out the camera angles from which they will
be photographed; determining the initial framing of
the shot; choreographing the movement of the cam-

178 CHAPTER 5MISE-EN-SCÈNE

1 2

Stanley Kubrick tightly controls mise-en-scène in

Eyes Wide ShutTwo types of finely controlled mise-en-

scène in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut(1999): [1] In this

indirect-point-of-view shot, we see through the eyes of Dr.

William Harford (Tom Cruise, not pictured) as he is brought

before a ritualistic tribunal. Painterly framing concentrates

our attention and thus accentuates the scene’s harrowing,

hallucinatory effects. Every particular in this image——the

elaborate architecture, the beautiful masks and cloaks, the

color scheme, the staging——makes clear that Harford is

headed into the center of power within this cinematic

underworld. [2] In contrast, a scene in which Harford

searches for a costume in New York City’s Greenwich Village

seems natural, chaotic, even haphazard——but this illusion has

been constructed as carefully as every other one in the

movie. Here, the darkly clad Harford is the focal point amid

more visual information than we can absorb. We note the

urgency of his quest, not the details of the surroundings. (In

fact, Kubrick filmed the Greenwich Village scenes not in his

native New York but on sets in his adopted home, London.

That the street names and shop names do not correspond to

real ones in New York alerts sharp-eyed viewers to the sets’

artificiality.)

era during the shot (if any); and creating the sounds

that emanate from the shot. Mise-en-scène is the

result of all that planning.

To be sure, impressive aspects of a movie’s mise-

en-scène can occur by chance, without planning,

whether through an act of nature (a sudden rain-

storm, for example), an actor’s deviating from

the script, or some other accident. Although some

directors display strict control of mise-en-scène and

some don’t, they generally collaborate with their

teams to control every aspect of it. Consciously and

deliberately put there by someone, staged for the

camera, mise-en-scène happens because directors

and their creative colleagues have envisioned it.

You should find the term mise-en-scèneuseful for

explaining how all the formal elements of cinema